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Following is the speech by the Secretary for the Environment, Mr Wong Kam-sing, at the Eco Expo Asia 2014 Opening Ceremony held at AsiaWorld Expo today (October 29):
Lawrence, Jason, Director General Zhao (Haulin), Director General Gao (Yunhu), Deputy Director General Lu (Wenbin), ladies and gentlemen,
Good morning. I am most delighted to join you all for the opening of the ninth Eco Expo Asia. This year, the Environment Bureau is again honoured to co-organise this unique and premium environmental trade event. This time we have more than 30 delegations from Mainland China representing the central, provincial and city level governments, with more than 170 officials from the Mainland. Thank you.
This time we are showing different environmental initiatives. At the Hong Kong Pavilion, we are showcasing two features, one is energy saving and green building, and the other is about waste management. I would like to share with you something about the latest policies and initiatives of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government. Firstly, it is about waste. We issued a blueprint on waste management with an ambitious target, which is to reduce our overall waste by 40 per cent in 10 years. It is supplemented by a plan on food waste launched early this year. In this blueprint, we have five initiatives to tackle waste challenges.
First, it is to reduce waste at source. We are going to have more Producer Responsibility Schemes (PRS) and on top of that, we are going to have the ground-breaking quantity-based waste charging scheme. That will change the landscape on waste, including its business opportunity and economies.
Second, it is about "food wise". Hong Kong people love food, and at the same time we have a lot of food waste in our landfills, accounting for about 40 per cent. So, we have the Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign and also support other food waste recycling initiatives. Some good news is that last Friday, we got the approval of our lawmakers that we will have the first organic waste treatment facility, to be completed around 2017, somewhere on Lantau Island. That will handle 200 tonnes of food waste per day and turn food waste into energy. For our Food Wise Hong Kong Campaign, we have just got a marketing award from the Hong Kong Management Association together with TVB - an Excellence Award.
Third, it is about recycling. We would like to support the recycling industry. We have earmarked $1 billion to support the recycling industry through our recycling fund.
Besides reduction at source, food wise and recycling, we have to treat our residual waste, including waste-to-energy and hygienic landfill. This week, we are going to ask the lawmakers to consider our landfills extension and also the waste-to-energy plant located near the southern part of Lantau Island. We hope we can get the approval soon so that we can have a more comprehensive waste management strategy.
Besides waste, we are supporting energy saving and green building. Hong Kong's carbon footprint is comparatively low when compared with some countries like the US and Australia. We would like to be having an even lower carbon city for Hong Kong. So we have had the Buildings Energy Efficiency Ordinance in place for some time. It is a benchmark for all the buildings, including new buildings, renovations, and also existing buildings.
On top of that, we provide incentives. For instance, if the buildings or new projects would like to get extra floor area, we can provide incentives. At the same time, they have to be greener, including doing the green building assessment BEAM Plus.
Overall, I think Hong Kong would like to be less wasteful, and at the same time to be greener and low carbon. And this time, the Eco Expo is showcasing more than 50 booths on waste and around 40 booths on green building and energy. These are very good indicators about our support on these areas.
Lastly, I would like to invite all of you to visit our Hong Kong Pavilion hosted by the Environment Bureau. It showcases how to do a booth with less waste. We reuse many of the "waste" materials including waste papers, wooden wine boxes collected from the airport, and other wooden waste to do our booth so that it can demonstrate a kind of less wasteful booth design.
This is our ninth Eco Expo and next year we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary. We would like to make it even more eventful and we need your support from overseas and from Mainland China. I look forward to seeing you again next year. Thank you.
Ends/Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Issued at HKT 20:23
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